Archive for the ‘Arts Panel Discussions’ Category

The Columbia Museum of Art in Columbia, SC, announces For Freedoms Town Hall: Freedom of Expression – Arts and Justice, a free event in participation with For Freedoms’ 50 State Initiative, on Monday, Sept. 24, 2018, at 6:30pm. A panel of artistic and legal experts will discuss this First Amendment right from artistic, local, and global perspectives.

A For Freedoms event at the Brooklyn Museum. Photo credit: Wyatt Gallery.

Following the panel discussion, attendees are encouraged to “talk back” with a response wall and to visit the voter registration booth to learn how their voices can be heard this November.

Featured speakers include Nikky Finney, Chad Henderson, Kathleen McDaniel, and Shaundra Young Scott, with Aparna Polavarapu serving as moderator.

Nikky Finney is the John H. Bennett, Jr. Chair in Creative Writing and Southern Letters at the University of South Carolina. She has authored four books of poetry, the last of which won the 2011 National Book Award for poetry.

Chad Henderson is the Artistic Director of Trustus Theatre in Columbia. As a professional theatre artist, he has directed dozens of professional productions at venues across South Carolina.

Kathleen McDaniel is a founding partner in the law firm of Burnette Shutt & McDaniel. She focuses on administrative and environmental law.

Shaundra Young Scott is the first African American female executive director of the ACLU of South Carolina. She concentrates on the civil liberties of individuals within the state of South Carolina, including but not limited to racial justice, criminal justice, women’s reproductive rights, voting rights, LGBTQ rights, and youth justice.

Aparna Polavarapu is a professor at the School of Law at the University of South Carolina. As part of the Rule of Law Collaborative, she focuses her research on the rule of law and human rights.

For Freedoms is a national platform for greater engagement in the arts and in civil society. Inspired by Norman Rockwell’s 1943 paintings of the four universal freedoms articulated by Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1941—freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear—For Freedoms seeks to use art to deepen public discussions of civic issues and core values, and to clarify that citizenship in American society is deepened by participation, not by ideology. The CMA is participating in their 50 State Initiative, which models how arts institutions become civic forums for action and discussion of values, place, and patriotism during the lead-up to the midterm elections.

International conference gathers artists and scholars who explore the history and legacy of the groundbreaking Black Mountain College, where Willem de Kooning, John Cage, Buckminster Fuller, Merce Cunningham, Franz Kline and Robert Rauschenberg collaborated in the Mid-20th Century.

This Year’s Conference Introduces Two New Programs:

The BMCM+AC Performance Initiative, a Multi-Part Project Offering New Dimensions to the Museum’s Visual Art Exhibitions, Including Brooklyn Youth Chorus’ Multimedia Stage Work Black Mountain Songs, Curated by Bryce Dessner (The National) and Richard Reed Parry (Arcade Fire) and Performed During the Conference; and Dance Heginbotham’s The Principles of Uncertainty, a New Dance Theater Work from Choreographer John Heginbotham and Author/Illustrator Maira Kalman, in March 2018
The Active Archive, a Stream of Programs Pairing the Museum’s Extensive Collection with Contemporary Artists, Curators and Thinkers, Beginning with an Exhibition Curated by Interdisciplinary Artist Martha McDonald. Conference Will Include 60+ Presenters and Keynote Addresses by Mel Chin and the Black Mountain Songs Creative Team

The Black Mountain College Museum + ArtsCenter (BMCM+AC) and the University of North Carolina Asheville are pleased to announce the ninth annual ReVIEWING Black Mountain College conference, which brings together artists and scholars to explore the history and legacy of the pioneering Black Mountain College (BMC), Sept. 29 – Oct. 1, 2017, in Asheville, NC.

In the mid-20th Century, a group of American artists and European refugees including Josef and Anni Albers, Willem de Kooning, John Cage, Buckminster Fuller, Merce Cunningham, Franz Kline and Robert Rauschenberg converged at the College and developed new artistic practices and an innovative culture of cross-disciplinary collaboration that came to define the American century. ReVIEWING Black Mountain College 9 celebrates and furthers the continuing relevance of this spirit.

Founded in 1933, Black Mountain College was one of the leading experimental liberal art schools in America until its closure in 1957. After the Bauhaus in Germany closed due to mounting antagonism from the Nazi Party, Josef and Anni Albers accepted an offer to join the BMC faculty. During their 16-year tenure in North Carolina, the Alberses helped model the college’s interdisciplinary curriculum on that of the Bauhaus, attracting an unmatched roster of teachers and students including many of the 20th century’s foremost American and European artists. Founded by arts advocate Mary Holden in 1993, BMCM+AC celebrates the history and impact of BMC as a forerunner in progressive interdisciplinary education through exhibitions, publications, lectures, films, seminars and oral histories. On July 1, 2016, BMCM+AC doubled its footprint in downtown Asheville, opening a second multi-use gallery space and study center, and developed a formal partnership with UNC Asheville.

The BMCM+AC Performance Initiative

Amidst a recent resurgence of public interest in Black Mountain College, BMCM+AC and UNC Asheville have launched a new Performance Initiative to offer residencies, workshops and performances of world-class interdisciplinary works that offer new dimensions to the Museum’s ambitious visual art exhibitions and illuminate and carry on the College’s legacy.

The BMCM+AC Performance Initiative kicks off during ReVIEWING Black Mountain College 9 with the Southeast Premiere of the acclaimed work Black Mountain Songs. Commissioned and produced by the Brooklyn Youth Chorus and BAM, and curated by Bryce Dessner (The National) and Richard Reed Parry (Arcade Fire), Black Mountain Songs is inspired by Black Mountain College, its prolific community of artists, and their work, and rekindles the College’s utopian spirit. The Chorus performs music written for them by eight composers: Dessner and Parry, as well as Pulitzer Prize-winner Caroline Shaw, Nico Muhly, Aleksandra Vrebalov, John King, Tim Hecker, and Jherek Bischoff. Featuring contributions from filmmaker Matt Wolf (Wild Combination: A Portrait of Arthur Russell), Black Mountain Songs is an expansive choral and visual work. This exquisite production premiered at BAM in 2014. New Amsterdam Records released an acclaimed recording of the work—Brooklyn Youth Chorus’ first album—earlier this year.

The BMCM+AC Performance Initiative will continue during the week of March 13, 2018, when BMCM+AC and UNC Asheville present The Principles of Uncertainty, a new evening-length dance theater work by choreographer John Heginbotham and author/illustrator Maira Kalman. Heginbotham will direct and choreograph the work, while Kalman will oversee all elements of design—sets, props, projections and costumes. Kalman will also be present on stage, alongside six members of Dance Heginbotham, an actor and live musicians. Composer Colin Jacobsen—a member of string quartet Brooklyn Rider, chamber ensemble The Knights, and Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble—serves as Music Director of the project. Members of The Knights will perform live.

Active Archive: Martha McDonald

“We do not always create ‘works of art,’ but rather experiments; it is not our ambition to fill museums: we are gathering experience.”—Josef Albers, Artist, Black Mountain College Faculty 1933-49

The Active Archive represents an ambitious new direction for Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center (BMCM+AC), both programmatically and artistically. While BMCM+AC has included contemporary work in past exhibitions, this will be the first time it commissions new work and offers an artist residency.

The Active Archive Initiative will give interdisciplinary artist Martha McDonald time to conduct research, incubate ideas, and make new work. In the research and planning phase of the project, she will explore how objects and ideas from the museum’s collection, the historic Lake Eden campus, and the city of Asheville itself can be stitched together to reveal new dimensions of the Black Mountain College (BMC) story, and how it connects to contemporary culture and art practice.

Martha McDonald is an interdisciplinary artist whose performances and installations feature handcrafted costumes and objects that she activates through gestures of making, unmaking and singing to transmit narrative. McDonald’s practice often focuses on site-specific “interventions” in historic house museums, rare book libraries, cultural institutions, and botanic gardens to investigate the sites and their stories in order to explore how public places connect with personal histories and emotional states. Her work involves deep archive/collections research in order to uncover hidden or forgotten histories. She invites audiences to experience sites and collections from an artist’s perspective.

McDonald’s project will bring the archive and ideas of BMC alive between Sept. 29 and Dec. 30, 2017, in both BMCM+AC exhibition spaces in downtown Asheville. The project includes an exhibition, a 96-page catalogue, and community programs including a performance, conference presentation, and a gallery walk-through/talk. McDonald’s Active Archive work will create a contemporary platform to advance the discourse surrounding the living ideas and history of BMC. The result will be a gathering place for community conversations among artists, audiences, scholars and students within the new exhibition.

In one gallery, McDonald will curate an exhibition of BMC artwork exploring the importance of color, process and experimentation at BMC. The second gallery will focus on BMC’s rich history of experimental theatre and performance art, stretching from Xanti Schawinsky’s early Bauhaus-inspired theater experiments in 1937-38 through the first Happening at BMC in 1952, conceived by John Cage and David Tudor and including Merce Cunningham, Robert Rauschenberg, MC Richards and Charles Olson.

Conference Presenters and Keynote Addresses

ReVIEWING Black Mountain College will feature over 60 interdisciplinary presenters from across the United States as well as Lithuania, Russia, and Canada. Topics addressed will include the artistic practices of BMC artists Josef and Anni Albers, Ruth Asawa, Ray Johnson, Merce Cunningham, and John Cage as well as the poetics of Charles Olson, Robert Creeley, Hilda Morley, and John Weiners. The conference will feature two keynote addresses: one by conceptual artist Mel Chin, on Friday, September 29, and another, about the composition and performance of Black Mountain Songs, in the form of a panel discussion with members of the creative team and others, on Saturday, Sept. 30.

Ticketing and Locations

Most of the events comprising ReVIEWING Black Mountain College 9 will take place on the UNC Asheville campus at the Reuter Center. Advance tickets are $40 for current members of BMCM+AC and UNC Asheville’s Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, and $75 for non-members (BMCM+AC annual membership included). This price will increase to $100 for non-members at the door on Sept. 29. Optional discounted tickets to the Black Mountain Songs performances, on Sept. 29 & 30, are available to conference attendees for $10, along with an optional tour of the BMC Lake Eden Campus on Oct. 1 for $15. Both add-ons can be purchased with conference admission at (reviewing.brownpapertickets.com).

The Black Mountain Songs performances will take place at the Diana Wortham Theatre in downtown Asheville. Tickets can be purchased for $20 ($12 for those aged 18 and under) here.

About the Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center

The Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center (BMCM+AC) preserves and continues the legacy of educational and artistic innovation of Black Mountain College (BMC). The institution achieves its mission through collection, conservation and educational activities including exhibitions, publications and public programs.

Arts advocate Mary Holden founded BMCM+AC in 1993 to celebrate the history of Black Mountain College as a forerunner in progressive interdisciplinary education and to explore its extraordinary impact on modern and contemporary art, dance, theater, music and performance. Today, the museum remains committed to educating the public about BMC’s history and raising awareness of its extensive legacy. BMCM+AC’s goal is to provide a gathering point for people from a variety of backgrounds to interact through art, ideas and discourse.

About Black Mountain College

The story of Black Mountain College begins in 1933 and comprises a fascinating chapter in the history of education and the arts. Conceived by John A. Rice, a brilliant and mercurial scholar who left Rollins College in a storm of controversy, Black Mountain College was born out of a desire to create a new type of college based on John Dewey’s principles of progressive education. The events that precipitated the college’s founding occurred simultaneously with the rise of Adolf Hitler, the closing of the Bauhaus school in Germany, and the beginning of the persecution of artists and intellectuals in Europe. Some of these refugees found their way to Black Mountain, either as students or faculty. Meanwhile, the United States was mired in the Great Depression.

The founders of the college believed that the study and practice of art were indispensable aspects of a student’s general liberal arts education, and they hired Josef Albers to be the first art teacher. Speaking not a word of English, he and his wife Anni left the turmoil in Hitler’s Germany and crossed the Atlantic Ocean by boat to teach art at this small, rebellious college in the mountains of North Carolina.

Black Mountain College was fundamentally different from other colleges and universities of the time. It was owned and operated by the faculty and was committed to democratic governance and to the idea that the arts are central to the experience of learning. All members of the college community participated in its operation, including farm work, construction projects, and kitchen duty. Twenty minutes east of Asheville, the secluded environment fostered a strong sense of individuality and creative intensity.

Legendary even in its own time, Black Mountain College attracted and created maverick spirits, some of whom went on to become well-known and extremely influential individuals in the latter half of the 20th century. A partial list includes Willem and Elaine de Kooning, Robert Rauschenberg, Josef and Anni Albers, Jacob Lawrence, Merce Cunningham, John Cage, Cy Twombly, Kenneth Noland, Susan Weil, Vera B. Williams, Ben Shahn, Ruth Asawa, Franz Kline, Arthur Penn, Buckminster Fuller, M.C. Richards, Francine du Plessix Gray, Charles Olson, Robert Creeley, Dorothea Rockburne and many others who have made an impact on the world in a significant way. Even now, decades after its closing in 1957, the powerful influence of Black Mountain College continues to reverberate.

About the Artists and Speakers

Brooklyn Youth Chorus (co-commissioner, producer, performer, Black Mountain Songs), now celebrating its 25th anniversary, is a collective of young singers and vocal ensembles re-envisioning choral music performance through artistic innovation, collaboration, and their distinctively beautiful sound. With an incredibly versatile range and repertoire, Brooklyn Youth Chorus combines intensive voice training and music study with exceptional performance experiences. Founded in 1992, Brooklyn Youth Chorus’s after-school program encompasses over 500 students in multi-level training divisions and advanced performing ensembles. With an emphasis on commissioning, the Chorus’s repertoire includes more than 100 original works and world premieres.

Bryce Dessner (creator, co-curator, composer, Black Mountain Songs) is a Brooklyn-based composer, guitarist, and curator who is also a member of the Grammy Award-nominated band the National. Dessner’s recent commissions include pieces for the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the National Audiovisual Institute of Poland, the Grammy Award-winning Kronos Quartet, and the new music ensemble eighth blackbird, among others. The first recordings of Dessner’s compositions, performed by Kronos Quartet, were released in 2013 by Anti on an album entitled Aheym. In 2014 Deutsche Grammophon/Universal Music Classics released St. Carolyn By the Sea; Suite from the Paul Thomas Anderson film There Will Be Blood, which features three of Dessner’s orchestral works performed by the Copenhagen Philharmonic and conducted by André de Ridder.

Richard Reed Parry (co-curator, composer, Black Mountain Songs) is the red-headed musical polymath at the heart of the inventive art rock band Arcade Fire, but his work and story reach far beyond. Born in Toronto and raised in a community of ex-pat British isles folk musicians, Parry studied electro-acoustics and contemporary dance at Concordia University. As well as contributing to Arcade Fire’s success over the past 10 years, he also released his debut album as a composer this year entitled Music for Heart and Breath on Deutsche Grammophon. Parry has also written commissioned works for Kronos Quartet, yMusic, and Bryce Dessner, and his chamber works also have been performed by the Calder Quartet and Who’s WhoWho’s Who Warhol Dervish. He has also collaborated and performed with artists like David Bowie, The National, the Unicorns, Neil Young, Mick Jagger, Sam Amidon, Nadia Sirota, Colin Stetson, Little Scream, La La La Human Steps, and Islands.

Maira Kalman (co-creator, designer,The Principles of Uncertainty) is the author and illustrator of 18 children’s books including Fireboat, Looking at Lincoln, and What Pete Ate, as well as five books for adults. Her online columns for the New York Times were compiled into two volumes, The Principles of Uncertainty and The Pursuit of Happiness. Her two most recent books about design, My Favorite Things and Ah-Ha to Zig Zag were recently released in conjunction with Maira Kalman: My Favorite Things – the exhibit she curated for the re-opening of the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum in New York City. Maira’s recent publications include Girls on Lawns with text by Daniel Handler, in conjunction with the photography department of the Museum of Modern Art, and Beloved Dog.

Originally from Anchorage, Alaska, John Heginbotham (co-creator, choreographer,The Principles of Uncertainty) graduated from The Juilliard School in 1993, and was a member of the Mark Morris Dance Group from 1998 – 2012. In 2011 he founded Dance Heginbotham (DH). The ensemble has been presented and commissioned by Bard College, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, The Joyce Theater, The Kennedy Center, and Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, among others. In the spring of 2016, DH toured to Indonesia, Laos, and the Philippines DanceMotion USASM, a project of the US Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA), produced by BAM. A frequent collaborator with live music, John has worked with numerous composers and musicians including Alarm Will Sound, American Classical Orchestra, Brooklyn Rider, Fischerspooner, Tyondai Braxton, Colin Jacobsen, Gabriel Kahane, and Shara Worden.

Martha McDonald (curator, Active Archive exhibition) is an interdisciplinary artist whose performances and installations feature handcrafted costumes and objects that she activates through gestures of making and unmaking and singing to transmit narrative. McDonald’s practice often focuses on site-specific “interventions” in historic house museums, libraries and gardens which investigate the sites and their stories to explore how these public places connect with personal histories and emotional states.

McDonald’s work has been produced in Berlin at Brotfabrik; in Melbourne, Australia at Linden Centre for Contemporary Arts and Craft Victoria; in Sydney, Australia, at Elizabeth Bay House; in New York at P.S. 122, The Joyce SoHo, HERE Center for the Arts and Galapagos Arts Space; in Washington, DC, at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery; in San Francisco at Theatre of Yugen; in Chicago at Links Hall; in Baltimore at the Evergreen Museum & Library and 14K Cabaret; and in Philadelphia at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Painted Bride Art Center, The Prince Music Theater and the Philadelphia Live Arts Festival. She has been selected for artist residencies at Monash University (Melbourne, Australia), The MacDowell Colony (Peterborough, NH), Evergreen Museum & Library at Johns Hopkins University (Baltimore, MD) and The Rosenbach Museum & Library (Philadelphia, PA). She has received fellowships from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts and the Independence Foundation. She completed a Masters of Fine Art at Monash University through a Monash Research Graduate Scholarship.

Mel Chin (keynote speaker) was born in Houston, Texas, in 1951. Chin’s art, which is both analytical and poetic, evades easy classification. He is known for the broad range of approaches in his art, including works that require multi-disciplinary, collaborative teamwork and works that conjoin cross-cultural aesthetics with complex ideas.

Chin also insinuates art into unlikely places, including destroyed homes, toxic landfills, and even popular television, investigating how art can provoke greater social awareness and responsibility. He developed Revival Field (1989-ongoing), a project that has been a pioneer in the field of “green remediation,” the use of plants to remove toxic, heavy metals from the soil. From 1995-1998 he formed the collective the GALA Committee, which produced In the Name of the Place, a conceptual public art project conducted on American prime-time television. In KNOWMAD, Chin worked with software engineers to create a video game based on rug patterns of nomadic people facing cultural disappearance. His film 9-11/9-11, a hand-drawn, 24 minute, joint Chilean/U.S. Production, won the prestigious Pedro Sienna Award for Best Animation from Chile’s National Council for the Arts and Cultures, in 2007. Chin also promotes “works of art” that have the ultimate effect of benefiting science, as in Revival Field, and also in the recent Operation Paydirt/Fundred Dollar Bill Project, an attempt to make New Orleans a lead-safe city. These projects are consistent with a conceptual philosophy that emphasizes the practice of art to include sculpting and bridging the natural and social ecology.

Chin’s work was documented in the popular PBS program “Art of the 21st Century.” He has received numerous awards and grants from organizations such as the National Endowment for the Arts, New York State Council for the Arts, Art Matters, Creative Capital, and the Penny McCall, Pollock/Krasner, Joan Mitchell, Rockefeller and Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundations, among others.

For more information, please contact Blake Zidell or Ron Gaskill at Blake Zidell & Associates by e-mail at (blake@blakezidell.com), (ron@blakezidell.com) or call 718/643-9052.

The Columbia Museum of Art in Columbia, SC, announces the acquisition of four major works of art previously on view as part of the seminal spring 2016 exhibition “REMIX: Themes and Variations in African-American Art”. The acquisition consists of powerful pieces from artists Bing Davis, Renée Cox, Michaela Pilar Brown, and Colin Quashie. The latter two artists will discuss their works and creative processes as part of the “REMIX/REDUX” lecture and reception presented by the Friends of African American Art & Culture (FAAAC) on Feb. 16, at 6pm.

“Our goal with “REMIX” was to raise awareness of contemporary African-American art and the mercurial yet magical nature of a ‘remixed’ methodology,” says Will South, CMA chief curator. “The acquisition of these phenomenal pieces helps these important and challenging conversations to continue.”

Among the four newly acquired works is “Ancestral Spirit Dance #568” by Willis “Bing” Davis of Dayton, OH. An artist and art educator who unabashedly looks to the distant past, Davis has created an ongoing series of sparkling pastels based on the high-energy patterns of African kente cloth made by the Asante peoples of Ghana and the Ewe peoples of Ghana and Togo. Davis riffs on these patterns in the vein of a soloing musician, exploding them out into a riot of colorful abstraction.

Jamaican-American photographer Renée Cox draws inspiration from the history of women artists remixing images to make powerful statements about liberation, leadership, and revolution. In her elaborately staged photographic collage “Liberation of Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben”, Cox herself assumes the identity of the superhero character Raje stridently leading the titular characters, who have shed their stereotypical caricatures, to freedom. Their pose directly references Eugène Delacroix’s “Liberty Leading the People”, arguably the most famous painting of the French Revolution.

Columbia artist Michaela Pilar Brown also uses photography to explore concepts of blackness and black femininity. Using her own body in combination with everyday objects, Brown creates vignettes that challenge conventional notions of race, feminism, and physicality. In “Speak No”, the arrangement of small plastic soldiers, rhinestones, and black paint on her head and face and the black Kewpie doll on her shoulder powerfully demonstrate the internal battle women of color often experience regarding their own beauty and self-worth.

Colin Quashie’s “Plantation Monopoly” was one of the most popular works of art in “REMIX”. A native Charlestonian, Quashie explores the well-known board game Monopoly and the historic plantation experience with wit and humor along with a large dose of criticism and irony. In repurposing something familiar and fun into a critique of the horrors of slavery, the piece commands the viewer’s undivided attention and then confronts that viewer with harsh historical realities that continue to resonate to this day. A fully functioning board game, “Plantation Monopoly” also provokes dialogue about the age-old question, “What is art?”

To further explore two of these fascinating works, the FAAAC presents “REMIX/REDUX”, a program featuring discussion between Brown and Quashie.

“I am extremely excited to sit in conversation with Colin Quashie,” says Brown. “He carries a sharp ax. He brings his sharp intellect, a deep understanding of history, and fearlessness to artmaking. His voice is essential at this moment in America’s story. The CMA’s acquisition of a seminal Quashie piece speaks to their commitment to addressing challenging ideas about contemporary American art. It’s good company to find myself in, and I’m thrilled to have this platform to engage in critical dialogue about artmaking, museum acquisitions, and inclusion.”

Porchia Moore, CMA consulting curator and Ph.D. candidate at the University of South Carolina, will moderate the program.

“The acquisition of these four works marks a significant purchase for the museum and the direction we will continue to take in our strategic strengthening of adding African-American work to our collection,” says Moore. “These four extraordinary artists each have a distinctive voice and style. A little provocative. A lot of truth. Some beauty. Some satire. Some pain. Each piece tells a story and invites you to truly participate in both the telling of that story and the listening of it. I think that this event featuring Michaela Pilar Brown and Colin Quashie is a wonderful way for us to celebrate the powerhouse visual artists of South Carolina and the work being created in the region which directly engages with and advances the art being created both in the Southeast and in the nation.”

All four works of art will go on view in the CMA’s future contemporary galleries.

GreenHill in Greensboro, NC, announces its second installment of the NC Artist Outreach Project, a program made possible by the Tannenbaum-Sternberger Foundation. The NC Art Outreach Project (Oct. 6-7, 2016) is designed to provide exposure to North Carolina artists by facilitating a dialogue with a nationally recognized artist, critic and curator. This year’s project is hosted in conjunction with GreenHill’s fall exhibition “Insistent Objects: Works by Young NC Sculptors” (Sept. 2 – Nov. 6, 2016).

Following on the success of the 2014 NC Art Outreach Project held during GreenHill’s exhibition Independents, this year’s project will offer the artists of Insistent Objects artists an invaluable opportunity to network with experts in the field of sculpture and receive direct feedback about their creative practices. Beginning on Oct. 6, 2016, at 6pm in The Gallery at GreenHill with a Panel Roundtable, guest panelists will present their experience working in contemporary art giving attention to the sculpture mediums. Guest Panelists include Glenn Harper, Tom Moran and Michael Ballou. Admission is Free.

Glenn Harper is Editor of “Sculpture” magazine and was formerly editor of “Art Papers”. He has written for “Aperture”, “Artforum”, “Public Art Review”, “Afterimage”, “Exit Express”, and for books on the works of artists John Van Alstine, Athena Tacha, and others. Tom Moran is Chief Curator and Director of Artistic Development of Grounds for Sculpture (GFS), a 42-acre landscaped sculpture park on the former site of the New Jersey State Fairgrounds which has been instrumental in introducing sculpture to a wider public. During his 30 year tenure as Director of Arts Inclusion and Artistic Services at the New Jersey State Arts Council he placed thousands of works of art in the state and federal buildings. Michael Ballou is a New York-based visual artist who works in media including film, installation, performance and sculpture. A longstanding member of the Williamsburg artist community in Brooklyn, he was one of the guiding spirits behind Four Walls, a combination of clubhouse and laboratory for the exchange of art and ideas hosted in his garage studio. He has exhibited at Valentine Gallery, David Zwirner Gallery, Pierogi Gallery, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, Xavier Hufkens Gallery, and the Kunsthalle (Vienna), among others.

Preceding the morning private presentations, join us in The Gallery for opportunity to talk with artists and panelists during a catered breakfast from 8:30am to 9:45am. Cost is $8/person. Registration is available at (GreenHillNC.org/breakfast). Register before Oct. 5, 2016. An evening opening reception of Insistent Objects will be held in The Gallery at GreenHill as a Downtown Greensboro First Friday program from 6-9pm.

GreenHill is the center for NC Art. GreenHill engages a broad community of artists, adults and children through dynamic exhibitions and educational programs while providing a platform for exploration and investment in art. GreenHill is the only non-collecting organization dedicated to presenting, promoting and advocating contemporary visual art and artists of NC.

GreenHill is located at 200 North Davie Street, in the Greensboro Cultural Center. Parking is available in Davie Street and Church Street parking decks in downtown Greensboro. The Gallery at GreenHill is open Tue.-Fri. 12-7pm, Saturdays 12-5pm, Sunday 2-5pm. Admission is free, donations appreciated.

GreenHill in Greensboro, NC, will present STREET ART – A Panel Discussion, on Wed., June 29, 2016, from 5:30 – 7pm. Join us in The Gallery for a discussion on street art from the personal perspective of our panel of community art leaders. Panelists will speak about the history of the practice and how contemporary public spaces are formed and enlivened. Free and open to the public.

The Wilmington Arts Summit will offer more than 30 expert-led workshops on professional development and capacity-building for artists and arts organizations throughout southeastern North Carolina. Best of all, it’s free of charge!

The kickoff will be held on Friday, Apr. 15, 2016, from 6-9pm, in CFCC’s Wilma W. Daniels Gallery and will include networking opportunities by discipline and other focus areas. Concurrent breakout sessions on Saturday, Apr. 16, from 10am-4pm, will be held in 10 classrooms in the academic wing of CFCC’s new Humanities & Fine Arts Center. The seating capacity will be 24 per classroom per session. Hourly panel discussions will be held in the center’s Black Box Theater, which has a seating capacity of about 125.

A Few of our Workshops:
Board 101
Understanding Financial Reports
Volunteer Management
Most Common Grant Mistakes & How to Avoid Them
Fund Development
Donor Retention
Friend raising NOT fund raising
Evaluating and Determining Program Strategy

What would happen if you invited ten folks with big ideas to speak about their favorite topic—all on a single evening? Nobody really knows because nobody in this fast-paced world has made the time to find out. Until now, that is.

With “TCVA 140: The Creative Incubator,” the Turchin Center for the Visual Arts, in Boone, NC, has found a way to pull it off. Beginning Nov. 19, 2015, at 7pm (with reception at 6:30), this quarterly event will bring together a diverse cross-section of some of the region’s most innovative thinkers and practitioners to discuss their ideas and projects. But here’s the rub: For their presentations, each of the evening’s ten featured speakers will be required to talk about seven slides with an allotted 20 seconds per slide—for a total of 140 seconds. (That’s a mere two minutes and twenty seconds per speaker.)

“We’re riffing on Twitter—for the smart, creative set,” says Turchin Center Curator Mary Anne Redding, who planned the event not just as a way of squeezing a whole lot of local lowdown and enlightenment into a single evening but also as a way to “bring people together to share ideas and to spark new conversations, new collaborations, new partnerships.”

“Boone and the surrounding area have a wonderfully creative demographic in all areas,” says Redding. And not just in the arts, she points out. “Creative people work in all fields but we don’t often have the opportunity to interact with one another; we’re so caught up in our own organizations and in the effort it takes to do the things we all do so well.”

With that in mind, “TCVA 140” was created for anyone interested in learning about the community beyond their own role in it—a goal that’s notoriously easier said than done. “But we’ve done the legwork and organized a fun and efficient way to meet new people, mingle, and enjoy a thought-provoking evening—and also, hopefully, take away a renewed commitment to our community.”

Below is a list of the speakers for the inaugural evening, which takes place Nov. 19 at 7pm, at the Turchin Center for the Visual Arts, with reception starting at 6:30pm.

Are you ready to be a part of the biggest network of visual artists and creatives in South Carolina?

The Behance Portfolio Review provides a fun, comfortable, insightful and educational environment for both established and aspiring professional creatives to meet and provide feedback for one another, and builds a network of support within the greater South Carolina arts community.

Our goal is to bring artists of South Carolina together in a casual environment for lively critiques and fun networking. This is your opportunity to connect with other creatives from all across South Carolina to gain new perspectives and learn to grow as professionals.

You don’t have to be a part of Adobe’s Behance to participate in this great event, but why wouldn’t you want to join the world’s largest network of creative professionals? Check out some of the great artwork at (www.behance.net) and join now!

The best part about this? It’s all free and you can get incredible door prizes if you get your tickets early! So tell your friends, and visit Eventbrite at (http://ow.ly/ScCBs) for info to get your ticket now!

The University of North Carolina Wilmington (UNCW) and Cape Fear Community College (CFCC), in Wilmington, NC, are excited to host the 37th Annual Tri-State Sculptors Conference. Located on the coast of North Carolina, Wilmington offers the perfect backdrop for an amazing conference. Installation artist Judy Pfaff, recipient of 2014 International Sculpture Center Lifetime Achievement Award, will be the keynote speaker. In addition, the weekend will be packed with panel discussions, demonstrations, presentations, and exhibitions.

Tri-State has also partnered with the Arts Council of Wilmington/New Hanover County to feature work by Tri-State members in the Pedestrian Art series. Up to 24 works will be installed at various locations in Wilmington from April 2015 – October 2015 and will represent a wide range of artistic styles, themes and media.

Cape Fear Community College will host the “Tri-State Members Exhibit” at the Wilma W. Daniels Art Gallery. The opening will be on Friday, October 2, 2015 from 6-9pm.

Conference Coordinator Andi Steele said “This conference is open to anyone with an interest in sculpture and sculptural processes. We are offering numerous presentations, demos and round table discussions by Tri-State members on topics such as the business of art and a variety of sculptural processes. Five different sculpture exhibits and a wonderful keynote speaker round out the conference.”

The Tri-State Sculptors Educational Association was formed in 1978 by a group of sculptors from Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina to promote public awareness and appreciation of sculpture in the region and to exchange ideas and information among its members. The organization holds annual fall conferences with concurrent exhibitions. Presentations cover a wide range of topics of interest to sculptors and those interested in sculpture, casting techniques, public art, studio hazards, gallery relations, etc. Membership is open to anyone interested in sculpture, regardless of style, medium, education, or location.

Installation by Judy Pfaff

Judy Pfaff was born in London, England, in 1946. She received a BFA from Washington University, Saint Louis (1971), and an MFA from Yale University (1973). Recipient, Academy Member Fellowship, American Academy of Arts & Sciences (2013); Anonymous Was A Woman Award (2013); MacArthur Fellowship (2004); Guggenheim Fellowship (1983); National Endowment for the Arts grants (1979, 1986); member, American Academy of Arts and Letters. Numerous solo exhibitions and group shows in major galleries and museums in the

9am-10am – “Developing Art as a Business,” with Jim Gallucci. This presentation will cover how to get started and how to make a living, what you need to be thinking about along the way, and the entrepreneurial aspects of the art business. The 3 do’s and the 17 years that are involved in starting your art business.

10:15am-12:15pm – “Casting With Rock Salt,” with Brian Glaze. Casting with Rock Salt will show how you can melt store bought rock salt in a crucible style furnace. This is accomplished mainly in the same way that you would cast bronze or aluminum. With the use of a bronze style furnace it is possible to cast rock salt that melts around 1450°-1500° Fahrenheit. In a molten state, salt is a translucent orange color, which is quite dramatic! A limited number of participants will be able to cast with Brian. Molds must be pre-made. Based on the style and thickness of your mold and pattern, green and oil based sand molds are better to use. Investment and resin molds are possible, but at your own risk. Please contact Brian Glaze (brian@briannglaze.com) for more information and availability.

11:30am-12:30pm – “Hand in Hand: Digital Technologies and Traditional Stone Carving Methods in Sculpture”. Kathryn Cook, BFA in Sculpture, Department of Art, University of North Carolina Greensboro, independent artist; Felicia Dean, Academic Professional and Director of Digital Fabrication, Department of Interior Architecture, University of North Carolina Greensboro; and Patricia Wasserboehr, Associate Professor in Sculpture and Drawing, Department of Art, University of North Carolina Greensboro. Digital fabrication technologies have been available to artists since the 1990’s and are increasingly available for widespread utilization across the globe. The ways in which sculptors conceive, develop, and produce sculpture are significantly altered by the use of 3D computer software, scanners, printers, and CNC milling. In this presentation, designers and sculptors will explore their recent studio practices as residents with the Digital Stone Project (DSP) in Gramolazzo, Italy, the access to the onsite CNC Milling machine that rough cut their models in marble, and where they finished them using traditional hand carving techniques. Each presenter will speak about their sculpture, 3D digital processes, and their learning experiences with the DSP.

12:30-2pm – Lunch

2-4:15pm – “Paper Casting,” with Matthew Egan & Heather Muise. Handmade paper is a versatile, lightweight and strong material that can be used in a variety of ways including casting, mold making and as a textural surface element. This demonstration will show how to create paper from a variety of natural materials and how to use handmade paper and additives that aid in sheet formation, strength and variation to create three-dimensional forms. Tamping wet paper made of malleable fibers over dimensional objects such as plaster molds will be discussed and demonstrated. Everyone is invited to try their hand at papermaking.

2-3pm – “Chasing Stones and the Scholarly Pursuit,” with Matt Amante, Pitt Community College Fine Arts Professor, Tri-State Sculptors President. This presentation will cover Chinese Scholars’ Rocks and how their aesthetic criteria impacted my sculpture. This lecture chronicles how an obscure concept I came across in an art history course shaped my aesthetics, provided a topic for my thesis, and lead me to Asia for 40 days in pursuit of finding these objects.

3:15-4:15pm – “20 Low Cost or Free Ways to Promote Your Art,” with Melissa Walker, Artist and Marketing Director, Carolina Bronze Sculpture. Take your art career to the next level with these easy, yet important ways to promote your art. Most are either free or very low cost and bring professionalism to your career that is needed is today’s competitive art market. Start with just one or try them all!

9am-10am – “Panel Discussion: How They Are Doing It”. Panelists will discuss the various ways they make a living as sculptors.

10:15am-12:15pm – “Basic Blacksmithing and Forge Design,” with Justin Vorhis. This demonstration will be an introduction to the ideas and concept of forging steel. It will cover building a simple forge, types of fuel, and basic forging techniques. Anyone who would like to participate will have the opportunity to forge. Handouts with information for building a forge and what makes a good anvil will be available.

10:15am-11:15pm – “The Making of the Wilmington Fallen Firefighter Memorial,” with Ed Walker, Artist and Owner, Carolina Bronze Sculpture. Follow along as Ed takes you through all the steps required to create a project of this magnitude. Starting with the idea, visualized as a 3-D animation flyby and using that as a proposal to the committee, the process is started. The next step is creating the model, scanning and enlarging to create a foam armature for the final clay surface. From there the traditional bronze casting process continues, but there is so much more. Dealing with the committee, fundraising ideas, arranging with contractors, including cement contractors, crane operators, lighting installation, construction delays and more! It is worth all the work once the final piece is unveiled. There was even a ride in a fire truck!

11:30am-12:30pm – “Patinas,” with Hanna Jabran. Hanna will demonstrate the application of various patina chemicals to bronze and aluminum. The processes demonstrated will be cold and hot patina application. Cold patina is a term used for special chemicals applied at room temperature, fumed, brushed or dipped. Cold patina takes approximately 24 hours or more to show results and usually are opaque colors and chalky. Hot Patina is applied with heat from a torch, where the metal is heated to approximately 200 degrees. The patina can be applied by airbrush, stippling or sponging. Hot patina is more controlled and can be layered to the desired color and opaque quality. After the application, the patina can be preserved by applying a coating of wax or a clear coat or lacquer.

12:30-2pm – Lunch

2-4:15pm – “The Self-Built Propane Fired Melting Furnace,” with Carl Billingsley. This will be a demonstration of Carl’s self-built, reverbatory-type, propane fired melting furnace. This furnace is designed so that it can be run using only a propane weedburner or similar type of self-contained portable burner (gravity fed Oil-burner, etc.). The system is designed to pour directly into molds that are brought to the furnace. This system avoids the necessity, expense and safety issues of commercial crucibles. No tongs, poring shanks, etc. are required. Perhaps the greatest advantage of this system, aside from not handling fragile crucibles full of hot metal, is that it can be operated single-handed. Although the system can be arranged to melt bronze, he will demonstrate aluminum casting for the conference. Bring a small ready to pour mold and aluminum if you’ve got it!

2-3pm – “Movement, Meditation & Making: Integrating Contemplative Practices,” with Maria Borghoff, Artist, Yoga Teacher. Movement, meditation and art making are all forms of contemplative practice that provide a unique set of tools for the individual to tap into an infinite source of creativity. Whether a contemplative practice is intended for personal health or growth, knowledge or spirituality, utilizing the tools of both ancient and modern practices can support any creative endeavor. This presentation will discuss the neurobiological effects of movement, meditation, and mindfulness and how these practices shape the brain, particularly for the creative process.

3:15-4:15pm – “History of Tri-State,” with Jim Gallucci. Learn how and why Tri-State was started, who the initial people involved were, and why we stay together. What the artistic climate was in the region at that time and how it has changed. What the future holds for Tri-State.

4:30-6:30pm – Judy Pfaff, Keynote address

7pm-Until – “Gathering of Sculptors,” at Hampton Inn. Come join us for dinner and conversation. You must purchase a ticket in advance to eat.

Sunday, October 4:

9am-11am – Business Meeting

For further information call Melissa Walker at 336/873-8291, e-mail to (melissa@carolinabronze.com) or visit (www.tristatesculptors.org).